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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Bishop E. M. Marvin, D.D., in the Clerk's Office of 
the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri. 




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GOD 




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IN THE 



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A SEEMON. 



BY 



BISHOP E. M. MARVIN, D. fc D.l §| 




fi ST. LOUIS, MO. : 

*> SOUTHWESTERN BOOK AND PUBLISHING^CO., 

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God in the Old Testament Scriptures 



For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens ; God Himself that 
formed the earth and made it; He hath established it. He created it not 
in vain. He formed it to be inhabited : I am the Lord ; and there is 
none else. I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth : 
I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye Me in vain : I the Lord 
speak righteousness, I declare things that are right. — Isa. xlv. 18, 19. 

The God ward consciousness in man is universal. 
Nothing is more prominent in all early history. As 
far back in the past as we know anything of man, he 
was a worshiper. Even if the book of Genesis were 
not in existence, this would still be true. From pre- 
historic times there comes to us a mythical literature, 
the very spirit and essence of which is a sense of the 
divine — -very crude and gross, unquestionably, but very 
distinct and commanding. Theism, in some form, has 
dominated the human mind from the times when the 
mind gave the first intimations of itself which have 
reached us. In that period which constitutes the dawn 
of history, in which all objects are shadowy and indis- 
tinct, man is discovered in communication with the 
Unseen. Earth and heaven are full of Invisible Powers. 
Some were beneficent, others malignant. The earliest 
poetry is a species of drama in which gods and god- 
desses are the chief actors. 



2 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

Through all modification of thought, all stages of 
civilization, all changes and revolutions of society, the 
Theistic consciousness remains. It is notified to us from 
all places of the earth. It is found in the hut of the 
savage and in the halls of the University. The half- 
naked hunter invokes the presence of some god, to 
prosper him in the precarious fortunes of the chase, or 
by rude incantations, from dusk to dawn, strives to 
exorcise the demon of sickness from his dying child. 
The philosopher, contemplating the tremendous forces 
of nature, worships the unseen Essence which delivers 
them. The Digger Indian, burrowed in the side of a 
hill, awes and hushes his children from the echo of some 
uncommon sound in the depths of the forest and the 
darkness. His Caucassian neighbor, collecting his 
household around the hearthstone, opens his Bible and 
reads, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." 

This Godward consciousness is in every man. The 
blankest idiocy scarcely escapes it. The absence of it 
were an unheard of idiosyncracy. There is no such 
thing as Atheism in the world. A man absolutely with- 
out God is not to be found. He does not exist. Many, 
indeed, are, in any Christian sense, " without God and 
without hope in the world." That is, they have no 
true moral or spiritual relation to Him — no inheritance 
of His love. But to be in absolute Atheism, without God 
— that is, without any thought of God in the mind, any 
Godward movement of consciousness, is a phenomenon 
no where to be found. What we call Atheists, men who 
deny the existence of God, must have the thought be- 
fore they can deny the fact of the being of God. The 
presence of this fact in consciousness is essential as a 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 3 

condition of the denial itself of the fact. The Atheist 
himself then, constitutes no exception to the proposition 
at first made : The G-odward consciousness in man is 
universal. 

How the fact of the divine existence comes within 
the field of consciousness I need not inquire. Such an 
inquiry falls within the domain of philosophy rather 
than of theology. To say that it is not in con- 
sciousness until it is brought there by some 
affirmation from without, does not affect the 
significance of the fact that it is there. There is 
nothing in consciousness until contact with some objec- 
tive fact evolves it — at least nothing beyond the most 
indefinite sense of being; and it may well be doubted 
if there could be even that. We come to know even 
the self by contact with that which is without. Much 
more that which is without must deliver itself in some 
way upon the soul before there can be any correspond- 
ing consciousness. To us the divine Existence is with- 
out, and there must be some notification to us of the 
fact before we can become conscious of it. Whether 
this notification be contained in the terms of a verbal 
announcement or in the intimations of a divine work, 
it is not necessary here to inquire. 

The paramount inquiry is, whether the thought itself 
may not be false. May it not be all just in the imagina- 
tion ? May it not be that there is no fact corresponding 
to this idea ? 

There are many false conceptions in the mind. There 
is no denying of this proposition. How are we, then, to 
distinguish the true from the false ? Must there be 



4 God in the Old .Testament Seriptures. 

harassing and painful want of certitude in the mind 
with respect to all its conceptions ? 

JSTo. There are facts and truths of which we are 
never in doubt. And in fact all error starts from some 
truth. Every falsehood is but a false putting of truth* 
Of the existence of matter, and of its essential phe- 
nomena, there is no doubt. Here is certainty. But in 
complex combinations, and where inference begins, 
things often get tangled and come into false attitudes 
in our thought. Still the phenomena, extension, figure, 
solidity, color, and these inhering in or supervening 
upon a substance, are facts — true facts, underlying all 
the grotesque displacements of them in our thought. 
So, feeling, thought, volition, inhering in the substance 
which we name spirit, are subject to much false group- 
ing, while yet they remain evermore unquestioned and 
unquestionable. 

That which is the basis of all thought, then, is true. 
The mind reposes in its conceptions of these primary 
facts. Nothing can shake the serenity of its convic- 
tions with respect to them. It laughs all skepticism to 
scorn. 

No more essential, in the primary conditions of 
thought, are the ideas of solidity, figure, extension, 
color, as phenomena of matter ; or knowledge, feeling, 
volition, as phenomena of mind, than is the idea of the 
divine Existence. Matter — spirit — God ; these three 
words are fundamental in thought. There may be, 
there is, much false thinking with respect to them, but 
the mere idea of them, as fact, as existent back of all 
modifications of the idea in our thought, is a conviction 
which it takes a world of learned nonsense to disturb. 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 5 

There is something objective to man answering to all 
that is subjective in him. The faculty of vision has its 
field of objective realities. So of the faculty of hear- 
ing. Below the faculties which are posited in organs of 
sensation there is the general faculty of knowledge, 
there are the affections, tastes, sentiments. All these, 
everything in fact that can possibly be named in man, 
answers to, or is answered to by, something without. 
Now, the grandest, richest faculty in the range of con- 
sciousness is that by which we think of God. While all 
else within is the counterpart of an object without, 
does this appear without any answering fact ? While 
every other voice within that calls upon a fact without 
gets ready echoes, does this one waste itself in empty 
space ? Is the fact in which consciousness culminates 
the only one that is a lie and a cheat ? 

Men believe in God because the thought of Him is in 
their minds. This fact is sufficient ground of the belief, 
if there were no other. The universal Godward con- 
sciousness is one side of the great fact, of which God 
Himself is the other. It is the sense of our relation to 
the Ultimate Being. 

This consciousness is the basis of all religion. It is 
the condition of all religious thought and feeling. Some 
flippant men in our day, as in former times, assuming a 
philosophical tone, pretend a conflict between religion 
and philosophy. The very statement is absurd. That 
which makes a quarrel with the phenomena of consci- 
ousness is " philosophy, falsely so called/' 

That were a convenient philosophy, indeed, which 
should select its own facts, or which should make a 
theory exclusive of any fact, and then discredit the fact 



6 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

by the theory. This is just what is done by all those 
systems which disparage religion. A just method em- 
braces all facts. The only legitimate function of philos- 
ophy is to give an intelligent statement of all facts, 
and, as far as may be, explain and account for them. 
The method which fails to account for any one of the 
great facts of consciousness, that is not comprehensive 
of them all, is, from the very failure, a false method. 
Nor must it explain the fact in a manner to discredit it. 
The fact must be honored; its integrity maintained. 
Facts are not to be lowered and misplaced, but handled 
reverently and with full credit of their significance. 
The philosophy that does not make room for religion, 
which is the supreme fact, is no philosophy, but a sham ; 
a mere " trick of philosophizing." This greatest fact of 
human consciousness and of human history is not to be 
dishonored by metaphysical tricksters. From the misty 
atmosphere of a vain conceit clouds and fogs may 
arise, and obscure this Mount Shasta of the facts of life 
for an hour, but evermore will it re-appear, supreme 
amid surrounding grandeurs, wrapped in the white 
mantle of Purity, and glowing in the everlasting sun- 
shine of Truth. 

The Godward consciousness, then, must ever abide a 
witness of God's existence, and of our relation to Him. 
And in this fact are given all the gravest issues of our 
own being. What we have to do with the Infinite must 
involve all that is of highest import to ourselves. It is 
at the highest point of consciousness that we touch on 
Him. No other subject of thought can be of equal 
moment with this. 

But, as I have already intimated, there may be, and 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 7 

as a fact there is, much that is false in human thought, 
with respect to the combinations, the relations, and 
indeed the very character of those things, the existence 
of which is in the data of consciousness, and as to the 
fact of which there is never, nor can be, any doubt in 
the simplicity of a candid mind. In physics and phi- 
losophy there is a world of false thinking, though the 
actual data be all undeniable. 

So, also, alas ! in religion, and in reference to God. 
The Divine is recognized everywhere, in all ages, by 
all men. But in what false lights is the glorious vision 
often set ! Indeed, the imperfection of man's reason is 
most painfully apparent when it is employed upon this 
the highest of all the classes of truth. It is soon dizzy 
upon these elevations. JSTot only from imbecility, but 
from depravity, it suffers disqualification for the attain- 
ment of truth in this high and pure region. U Such 
knowledge is too high for me; I can not attain unto it." 
In its depraved appetency the mind tends to that which 
is low and evil. The true knowledge of God is "difficult 
to it in its low estate. 

Yet, to hold the truth is essential. We take a 
true or false relation to any fact as we have a true or 
false notion of the fact. Our attitude toward any 
object or movement is taken from the understanding we 
have of it. Men often take a stand in relation to the 
forces of nature and of society that involves them in 
disaster, from holding a false view. Misconception of 
the nature and direction of forces, in many cases, in- 
volves ruin. Men take their attitude before God, and 
their relation to His government, from their under- 
standing of the facts of His character and law. In 



8 God in the- Old Testament Scriptures. 

many thousands of cases they misplace themselves, and 
are borne down by the Infinite Forces, in the way of 
which they stand. Nothing but the " Truth will make 
them free." 

Yet it is true, from indubitable and abundant tes- 
timony of history, that it is hard for the true Theis'tic 
idea to maintain a footing in the human mind. The 
idea is always present, but is ever taking on false forms. 
There seems a strong and inevitable tendency to de- 
praved conceptions of the divine nature and character. 
Even where the true idea has been lodged in thought, 
it has not maintained itself. The tendency seems 
especially to be, to lose sight of the Unity, the Spiritu- 
ality and the Holiness of the Godhead. 

Amongst the Jews, after the fullest expression of the 
divine nature in the revelations which God made to 
them, for many ages there was perpetual degenera- 
tion of thought on this subject. They were constantly 
taking up the abominable conceptions of their heathen 
neighbors. Their mind Seemed to gravitate heavily to 
the basest forms of thought. They evinced the strong- 
est affinity for idolatrous ideas and practices of the 
grossest character. This tendency was so prevalent and 
continuous that God had, at short intervals, to put forth 
new and terrible manifestations of Himself to recover 
them to the recognition of His true character. Of this 
I shall speak more fully after a while, 

Even within the Christian era the same fact re- 
appears. The Theistic idea has suffered great deterio- 
ration among the Romanists and other sects. You 
can not look into the Romish calendar without recalling 
the Roman mythology. Olympus comes in view, with 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 9 

the crowned Deity upon the summit, and all the moun- 
tain populous with smaller gods. Mary has enjoj^ed 
successive elevations until she ranks well with Minerva. 
Prayer goes up to her at once from all places, as if she 
were invested with the divine attribute of Omnipresence. 
Prom the import of prayers in common use she is 
looked to, and confided in, even more than Christ, for 
help and grace. A thousand saints have reached an 
apotheosis in which they are recognized in the ritual, 
their names are reverently uttered, and their images 
appear in the house of God. The Cathedral of Christian 
Eome is scarcely to be distinguished from the Temple 
of heathen Eome, unless it be from the style of art in 
which the pictures and images are produced. 

This depraved Theism comes of no want of fulness 
or emphasis in the revelation of Himself that God has 
given. It has its source in the inherent evil of our 
fallen state. It has a common root with ail other sin. 
" The imaginations of the thoughts of the heart are only 
evil, continually." The cause that produces the violation 
of the Law of God in act, issues, also, in the violation of 
the Truth of God in thought. There is no want of dis- 
tinctness, nor of authority, in the revelation of the 
law * yet the law is perpetually violated. There is no 
want of distinctness, nor of emphasis, in the revelation 
of the truth ; yet the truth, also, is perpetually violated. 

Now, the Bible — -the whole Bible — is a revelation of 
God and of His will to man in his fallen state. It is, 
therefore, accommodated, so far as that is possible, to 
the debased condition of his faculties and affections'. It 
is designed to take hold of him in his grossness and lift 
him out of it : to reach him where he is, in the mud and 



10 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

filth of a sinful condition, with divine attractions that 
shall raise him and restore him to his lost estate. It is 
a divine manifestation, adapted, as far as possible, to his 
blurred vision. It is an utterance of God suited to the 
ear for which it is intended. It is a method of divine 
disclosures accommodated to man's inappeteney for 
divine things. 

This adaptation contemplates the individual man, as 
far as that may be. To this end it contemplates the 
race in the scope of its history. Early revelations an- 
ticipated and prepared the way for other and higher 
disclosures, for which the world required to be educated 
beforehand. Successive revelations, as the conditions 
of thought would justify, went forward toward their 
culmination in Christ. The whole preceding history 
of revelations was required to prepare the vision of 
man for the sunburst of Deity which flamed out in His 
advent. Nor was the preparation even then perfect. 
The failure was not in any want of perfection in the 
preparatory agencies, but in the inaptitude of the human 
mind itself, the subject of their operation. The teach- 
ing was perfect, but there was unutterable stupidity in 
the pupil. 

Yet the failure was not complete. Amid the depravi- 
ties and downward tendencies, and stupidities of 
thought, perverse and vicious as it was, there was pro- 
gress. Mind was in a state almost infinitely better pre- 
pared for the manifestation of God in Christ when He 
did come than it had been in the first ages. 

The Old Testament Scriptures, then, are to be re- 
garded as containing a system of preparatory revela- 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 11 

tions, a progressive series of disclosures looking to 
Christ, and to reach their acme in Him. 

To think truly of God, so far as the capacity of 
thought may allow, is an essential condition of true re- 
ligion. Oar conception of God is the very starting 
point of the religious life. If this fountain be corrupt, 
the taint will appear in the whole life. If this be pure, 
there is an auspicious incipiency of all that is highest 
and holiest in the possibilities of religion. 

The capital point, therefore, in the preparatory reve- 
lations, was to secure a place in the mind of man for 
the true thought of God. A pure Theism must be deeply 
rooted in the world's thought. Without this, man's re- 
ligion will be but another form of depravity — another 
expression of the evil, the corruption that is in him. 
As the first condition of every end contemplated in re- 
velation, God must set Himself clearly in man's vision. 
He must assert Himself in man's thought. The Infinite 
must speak His Name to us. We must hear it, and 
every syllable of the utterance must bring ineffable 
import. Out of the holy places we must hear His 
voice. I AM THAT I AM must become radiant in 
our eyes with His own immortal, uncreated light. Not 
in the murky light of a vitiated theory, nor through 
the distorting medium of a tainted and sensuous imagi- 
nation, but in His own pure, eternal splendors we must 
contemplate Him. Then, and not till then, will we be 
prepared to listen to His Word. Then, and not till then, 
will sin be sin to our understandings and consciences. 
Then, and not till then, will His Law convey to us its 
holy import. Then, and not till then, will Guilt and 
Judgment overwhelm us with the grandeur of their awful 



12 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

* 

meaning. Then will the word Salvation fall like a be- 
neficent baptism upon our spirits, and Christ become, 
indeed, " chiefest among ten thousand and altogether 
lovely." 

Every one who comprehends the unity of the Holy 
Scriptures understands the Old Testament as the pre- 
cursor of the New. The dawn of the Christian day is 
seen in the early chapters of the book of Genesis, The 
" light shineth more and more until the perfect day" 
appears in the ascended Christ. Prophecy and ritual 
pre-intimate the Eedeemer. Statement and symbol an- 
nounce Him. Half revealed and half disguised in typi- 
cal and metaphorical representation, He everywhere 
appears in the Old Testament. The outline is perfect. 
When He re-appears in the New Testament, we recog- 
nize every divine lineament, in the fulness of "unveiled 
majesty and beauty. The introductory ages and reve- 
lations certify Him to our faith. The signature and 
the seal are upon His credentials, and our Messiah is 
accredited to us beyond the possibility of cavil. 

But the coming of the Son of God could have been 
of no avail to us if there had been no just knowledge of 
God Himself. With a corrupt Theism, faith in the Son 
must have been corrupt. With no true sense of Divine 
claims, and corresponding obligations, the Saviour 
would have been nothing to us. The Power, the 
Majesty, the Holiness of God must have been delivered 
upon human consciousness before Christ could be Christ 
to us. 

The meaning of the Old Testament concentrates and 
culminates in the utterance of the Name of the Most 
High. One word gives an exhaustive statement of the 



God in the Old, Testament Scriptures. 13 

contents of these writings. That word is— God. God, 
in His nature, His character, His work, His govern- 
ment, fills the whole sphere. Whatever else appears, 
appears only in its relation to Him. All else is men- 
tioned in a way to give emphasis to His Name. Every 
voice in the Book but swells the volume of that tide of 
sound which bears the word Jehovah to our ears. Even 
Christ, as he appears in type and prophesy, voices forth 
this Name. 

What I desire to bring out to-day may be postulated 
concisely in these propositions : 

The design of the Old Testament Revelations is, 

I. To set God in the true light, in Thought. 

II. To enthrone Him over Conscience. 

III. Thus to prepare the world for the coming of 
Christ, who is Himself the final and highest Utter- 
ance of the Godhead. 

Following this method, I proceed to elaborate the 
first proposition. 

I. It is the Design of these Scriptures to set God 
in the true light in Thought. 

There is one remarkable fact which might seem, at 
first, to militate against this proposition. There is no 
formal announcement of the existence of God in the 
Bible, nor any systematic statement of His attributes. 
There is no teaching upon the subject by a scientific 
method. The Theistic idea was not communicated to 
the world through Moses. It was already in the world, 
with the Xame, and had been from the beginning. As 
I have already said, it was universal in human conscious- 
ness. The thought had not to be originated. But it 
did require to be corrected. It had in many cases 



14 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

degenerated into false forms, retaining but a shadow of 
the truth. It must be redeemed from its grossness. 
What was false must be eliminated. What was want- 
ing must be supplied. God must become to man what 
He is in fact. Thought was full of error, and must be 
clarified. The Name must be pronounced with an 
emphasis so deep and so prolonged as to enthrone it 
among men forever. This is what the revelations of 
the ante-christian period have done. The form of 
announcement was so varied, the circumstances so 
imposing, the voice of such awful majesty, and repeat- 
ing itself through a period so long and so eventful, 
that it has inwrought itself into the sentiments and 
mental habitudes of men too deeply to be eradicated. 
In the written form it still remains vindicating itself to 
thought, and dominating the soul with a power and a 
majesty which command the faith and fear of the 
proudest and most unwilling. 

The method is not scientific — it is historic. The 
nature and character of God are not reduced to a form- 
ula, and brought thus into a single view. Such a method 
would have destroyed the form and effect of Eevela- 
tion. It would have brought the Creator down to the 
level of philosophy and natural science. It would have 
invited criticism and impaired reverence. Nor could 
the meaning of the Name be brought out in that cold, 
logical way. 

He is the Living God. Disclosures of Him must not 
be scientific, but Personal. Abstraction can never show 
Him to us. He must appear in Facts. His attributes 
postulated in the most complete analysis, would leave 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 15 

Him indistinct, remote. To be to our thought what He 
is in fact, He must appear immanent in His works. 

The method, then, in which God communicates Him- 
self is historic. He notifies us of Himself, of His nature 
and character, in His works of creation and providence, 
and in His government. From the creation to the 
coming of Christ He shows Himself to us in His work, 
and as He touches upon events. The Bible opens with 
an account of His work in the creation. In the historic 
method of revelation this was inevitable. He gives a 
simple narration of the work of creation ; but how grand, 
how godlike in its unaffected tone and brevity of state- 
ment. There is no display of gorgeous speech here ; 
no place for it. God is doing His great work ; let no 
rhetorical impertinences invite attention from Him. 
The narrative reads to me just like God giving an 
account of His own work. There is no parade, no 
ostentation. There is no meagreness of fact, no impo- 
tency of abortive or shortcoming effect, that requires 
pretentious description to justify obtrusion upon your 
notice. The stupendous miracle of creation, the work 
of God, just requires words enough to set it before you. 
Further speech would be impertinent. 

Let us hold our breath to hear His first utterance to 
man. "In the beginning God created the heavens and 
the earth." If you had a thousand years for the task, 
and access to all the libraries in the world to spur inven- 
tion, and were through ths whole time in the most 
thought-provoking situations, you could never originate 
a sentence such as this — so sublime, holding in itself so 
much matter, and withal so fitting, as God's first state- 
ment to man. I have often said, and with the utmost 



16 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

deliberation repeat it now, that if I had never heard of 
a Bible until to-day, and should open it for the first 
time, with the most skeptical disposition, on reading this 
first sentence I should become at once pre-disposed to 
receive it as a communication from God., "In the 
beginning God created the heavens and the earth," 
Surely this is God's voice announcing His work ! Nor 
is the first impression modified in the progress of the 
narration. It simply discovers the vital movement of 
Godhead. The eternal power and Godhead become 
apparent. They are brought upon the plane of human 
observation. 

From this point forward, events given in the utmost 
simplicity, most graphic, most life-like, arouse attention 
and excite interest only to make audience for God, 
revealing Himself as He touches upon and handles the 
events. The Fall, the Promise, the Wickedness of 
man, the Anger and Grief of God, the Flood, the Call- 
ing of Abraham, the Covenant, the Bondage in Egypt, 
the Deliverance, the Journey through the wilderness, 
and ail that followed until Messiah came, is simply a 
historical back-ground, on which the Name and char- 
acter of God appear. 

When there is formal statement and solemn announce- 
ment of divine attributes and claims, there is always his- 
toric occasion of it, as when Moses was accredited to 
the Hebrews under the sanction of the Supreme Title, 
" I am that I am — I am hath sent thee ; " or when, after 
the most startling events, God makes such intimate 
manifestation to His servant, yet not of His unclouded 
glory. He said, "No man shall see my face and live," 
and proclaimed Himself "the Lord, the Lord God, 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 17 

merciful and gracious, long Buffering, and abundant in 
goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, for- 
giving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will 
by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the 
fathers upon the children's children unto the third and 
to the fourth generations. Ex. iii. 1 — 14; xxiii. 8 — 23; 
xxiv. 4 — 7. The Decalogue comes to us incorporated 
into a history the most striking, the most impressive 
that was ever written, and was promulgated amid sce- 
nic displays that turned a nation pale. Even now, 
after the lapse of thousands of years, with no participa- 
tion of personal interest in the events of the history, 
we are awed and solemnized in contemplating the situ- 
ation of the people in the desert, so lately delivered with 
a high hand from Egypt, and now at the base of Mount 
Sinai, gazing in dismay upon its summit and sides 
in wrapped by black, massy, moving volumes of cloud 
and smoke, which were agitated and parted by jets of 
flame ; chain lightning meanwhile writing the name, 
Jehovah, on the blackness, and the trumpet-blast wax- 
ing louder and louder, till it jars the mountain, while 
ever, at brief intervals, peals of thunder rive the cliffs, 
and shame all common terrors. Now and here, at this 
distance of time and place, we gaze upon the scene, and 
our spirits bow themselves down before God to receive 
His Law. Ex. xix, xx. N"o one can fail to see with 
how much greater distinctness and force the revelation 
is invested by the historic method. 

This is an incident of our very constitution. What is 
embodied and organized we see clearly, and understand 
and remember. What is abstract seems indistinct, shad- 
owy, unreal. We live in a world where every thing has 
2 



18 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

body and shape, and our knowledges come to us through 
organized expression. Though we may reach the 
abstract and dwell in an ideal region, it is always by an 
effort. So our Creator, in the Bible, has approached us 
on the accessible side. He comes upon us in history. 
Yet is it a history having many superhuman aspects, 
and we feel that the history is divine. It is God that 
comes to us. It is His voice that we hear ; His hand that 
we see. 

The very prophecies, most of them, stand in historic 
connections. To this fact they owe much of their 
vivacity and impressiveness. They are God's words 
interjected into the midst of events— famines, pesti- 
lences, wars, captivities, commerce, the rise and the 
downfall of nations. 

But the events of history, as they appear in the Scrip- 
tures, serve only as a vehicle. To note and narrate 
them is not the object of these writings. They are used 
for a great purpose. They are charged with a message 
to man. They bear a burden. They are laden with a 
word — one word — God. His attributes are hinted in 
them. With a solemn voice they confess His Power. 
They reflect His glory. They evince his character. 
They hold Him in contrast with all false gods. They 
embody the true Theistic idea, and take possession of 
the mind for it, attacking and expelling, to make room 
for it, every false and mean conception of the divine 
nature. They are the vehicle in which God comes and 
takes possession of human thought. 

Having thus ascertained the method bv which God 
reveals Himself to man, let us now see what it is that 
.He has communicated. What is the true thought, 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 19 

given by Himself, as distinguished from all false ideas 
and theories of the nature and being of God. Let it 
be understood that I do not presume to bring out, in 
one sermon, all that is herein given on this great sub- 
ject. Only those facts which are of most vital moment 
to us can be definitely stated, and the statement even of 
them must be most imperfect. 

1. The first fact with respect to God which I gather from 
these Scriptures is His Personality. 

To an ingenuous mind it seems strange, even startling, 
that there should ever have been a doubt of this fact. 
To conceive of God as a Person seems inevitable to one 
who has enjoyed christian education. Yet, by a species 
of metaphysical legerdemain, some men have put aside 
this most vital and necessary fact. This negation of the 
personality of God appears in two forms : 

(1.) The sheer impersonality of the Infinite. God is 
just the Absolute — the Unconditioned. Thus is the 
Supreme Being reduced to a mere abstraction. Of 
course it does not comport with the purposes or exigencies 
of this sermon to attempt any philosophical refutation of 
this unphilosophical philosophy. I name it as one 
form of the false Theism (if it be indeed a Theism at 
all) against which God asserts Himself in His revela- 
tions. It is not every man who uses the terms men- 
tioned that denies the divine personality, but some push 
their transcendental speculations to this result, with a 
world of talk about " resolution of forces," and other 
such nonsense on stilts. 

(2.) Pantheism. This appears in two forms : First, 
in the assertion that God is every thing. Nature and 
man are only parts of God, outcroppings of the divine 



20 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

essence. It reduces all things to one. God is not a 
Person, distinct from what we see, but is just the sum 
of things. Second, it appears in the assertion that God 
is in all things, as the soul of them. According to the 
first, nature and man are lost in God ; according to the 
second, God is lost in Nature. 

Now, the distinct Personality of God is given with the 
utmost emphasis in the Old Testament. It is given, 

(1.) In the very fact of a revelation, which requires, 
as correlative, a Eevealer. Let a man once admit a 
revelation from God, and it is inevitable that from that 
moment God must be, to him, a Person. Not only so 
as against the impersonal theory of the Absolute and 
Unconditioned, but as against the Pantheistic theory 
that confounds all personality in one. God's colloquy 
with me gives at once His personality and mine. 
" Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." Nothing more 
than the recognition of God's voice is requisite to disen- 
chant a self-bewildered mind of all the poor sophistries 
by which it loses sight at once of God and of itself. 

(2.) It is given in the fact of creation. Men may im- 
agine eternal activities evolving new forms with inex- 
haustible fecundity, however repugnant to reason the 
imagination may be, and so flatter themselves that they 
have gotten rid of God. But no man can accept the 
averment of Moses, "In the beginning God created 
the heavens and the earth," without a distinct concep- 
tion and acceptance of the fact of the divine Person- 
ality. 

Intelligence and power are not qualities of an abstrac- 
tion. We assign them to persons. It is fundamental 
in thought that they are attributes of a person. To 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 21 

deny this would be proof of insanity. We cannot 
think of them otherwise than as attributes of a person. 
Intelligence is involved in the making of a revelation, 
and both power and intelligence in creation. Keveal- 
ing himself, then, as the Creator, God sets Himself be- 
fore us as a Person. 

(3.) It is given in the fact of the divine government. 
He is " King of kings and Lord of lords." The idea 
of Personality is inherent in this, as in the other facts 
named. 

(4.) In short, this idea inheres in every act ascribed 
to God. It is not necessary to dwell upon it. In the 
Bible the Infinite Cause is a Being, a Person. This 
stands out so fully that no believer in the inspiration of 
the Holy Scriptures ever doubts it. Indeed, there is 
no God at all if He be not a Person. To name some 
abstraction God is in the last degree absurd. The very 
instinct of worship contemplates a person, and all the 
attributes of personal being are distinctly and constantly 
predicated of God in the sacred writings. 

2. Tfie second fact is the Divine Unity. 

While there is intimation of a plural condition in the 
Godhead, it is the fact of Unity that is asserted, over 
and over, with a precision of statement, a variety of 
asseveration, and a jealous emphasis, most striking and 
remarkable. The doctrine of the Trinity is not more 
than intimated in the books of the Old Testament. It 
came fully to light with the advent of the Son into the 
world. Yet while the Trinity appears in the New 
Testament, the Unity is no less jealously guarded than 
in the Old. But in the writings of the ante-advent 



22 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

period, our Maker has taken every method of fixing 
this fact as a sun in the firmament of revelation. 

Every one is aware of the tendency in early times to 
drift from this anchorage. Polytheism became almost 
universal. Upon every possible analysis of the divine 
attributes, functions and prerogatives, the Unity was 
broken up and gods were multiplied. Wisdom, power, 
justice, all the attributes indeed; were represented, each 
by a separate god. The affairs of life, as war, peace, 
agriculture, commerce, love and the rest, were divided 
out to the charge of appropriate deities. Each region 
of the domain of nature, as the earth, the ocean, the 
air, mountains, plains, was placed under separate juris- 
diction. Each nation had its god or gods, charged es- 
pecially with its fortunes. Each family was under 
patronage of some small god. The basest passions had 
each its god. In fact, heathenism, ancient and modern, 
is so populous with gods that it is impossible to make a 
complete census of them. They swarm in earth and 
sea, in air and fire and sky. Between the celestial and 
infernal poles, from Jupiter to Pluto, heaven and earth 
and erebus are full of them. 

The divine unity broken up in thought, the Theistie 
idea becomes degraded at once. The carryings on of 
the gods of heathenism are most disgusting. They are 
of both sexes. Their loves and jealousies and intrigues 
would shame the most prurient circles of modern times. 
They quarrel and make friends in the most pettish way. 
But I can not dwell. 

Each god, in worship, must be represented by an 
image, which shall express to the worshiper the pecu- 
liar trait of his character. As amongst the Eomanists 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 23 

now, it is not the image to which 'adulation is given, so 
amongst the heathens of all ages. The Chinaman and 
the Hindoo will tell you that the image represents an 
unseen spirit. But the ignorant Komanist and the igno- 
rant heathen, alike, regard the image itself with a 
superstitious awe. So dark, so hideous, does the Theism 
of those who drift loose from the great, central, conser- 
vative fact of the Unity of God become. This truth 
lost, all right thinking upon this subject is gone. The 
mind loses its polarity. The needle shifts this way 
and that, yielding to the distracting influence of scat- 
tered magnets, until bewilderment is complete, and con- 
fusion worse confounded. No conceit is too silly to be 
entertained, no folly too grotesque to be embraced, and 
no depravity too corrupt to be indulged and relished. 
Every most ridiculous and basest thing is accredited 
with divine honors. 

This is, in fact, the logical end of Polytheism. A 
little reflection will convince you that this is so. This 
debased thought is not accidental in heathenism, but 
the inevitable result of its first falsehood. 

Against all this the ancient scriptures assert the ex- 
clusive Godhead of the Creator. " The Lord our God 
is one Lord." "The Lord He is God." "I am God; 
and beside Me there is none else." "He will not give 
this glory to another." "Thou shalt have no other 
gods beside Me." He heaps scorn on the gods that 
can not save. "The wood of their graven images " He 
scorches with sarcasm. " They have eyes, but they see 
not; they have tongues, but they speak not; they have 
hands, but they handle not; noses have they, but they 
smell not." Then, what a rebuke upon their makers 



24 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

and worshipers : u They that make them are like unto 
them ; " as senseless and as stnpid. They take a tree, 
and one part of it they burn, and bake bread and warm 
themselves by the fire : and " of the residue they make 
a god !" 

Against all idolatry and idol gods His fiercest anger 
burned. He chastised His people with a whip of scor- 
pions whenever they sought other gods, as they often 
did. War, Pestilence, Famine, the ministers of his 
wrath, He turned loose upon them whenever they fell 
into idolatry. Through all the time of the Judges they 
were perpetually forsaking Him for Baalim and Ash- 
taroth, and He perpetually whipped them back. From 
the reign of'Behoboam to the captivity this dreadful 
history was repeated over and over. The chastisements 
of God were at last effectual. After the horrors of 
the invasion by Nebuchadnezzar and the seventy years 
captivity in Babylon, they never showed any tendency 
to recognize any other god. All usurpers of divine 
authority were cast out. I discover not the least trace 
of a polytheistic tendency after that. But by what an 
awful history the Creator secured His dominion ! 

3. The third fact which I shall notice is the spiritu- 
ality of God. 

In the Old Testament this is given chiefly in the fact 
of His Omnipresence. " Do not I fill all things ?" " The 
heaven, even the heaven of heavens can not contain 
Thee." "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or 
whither shall I flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up 
into heaven, thou art there : if I make my bed in hell 
behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the 
morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 25 

even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand 
shall hold me." This Presence in all space, filling all 
things, was Spirit. If the Scriptures speak of God's 
hand, and His eye, as if He had bodily organs, it is to 
express, in a way suited to our comprehension, the fact 
of His operation. We are secured from misapprehen- 
sion of all such passages by repeated assertions of His 
independence of all physical conditions. "His eye run- 
neth through the earth/' That Eye is no physical or- 
gan. It simply expresses to us the fact that He sees. 
He sees in all places at once ! This independence of 
physical conditions is affirmed in many places. " If I 
say, surely the darkness shall cover me ; even the night 
shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not 
from thee ; but the darkness shineth as the day : the 
darkness and the light are both alike to thee." This 
independence of physical conditions, this unseen Pres- 
ence from which there can be no flight; contain the 
conditions of a spiritual essence. Although it was left 
to our Lord to announce in terms, a God is a Spirit," 
yet the fact is clearly and 'most impressively brought 
out in the Old Testament. The temple service contem- 
plated a spiritual Presence. The prophetic writings 
imply it. He who " doeth according to His will in the 
army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the 
earth," is under the restraint of no physical limitations. 

4. These Scriptures announce the Omnipotence of God. 

This appears at the very first in the creation. He 
who contemplates God as He appears in the first chap- 
ter of Genesis, can never doubt that those goings forth 
of Power were from an infinite source. There is no 
limit upon the might of Him who pronounced words 



26 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

which orbed themselves into worlds. " He spake and 
it was done, He commanded and it stood fast." He 
called for worlds where there was nothing and they 
" stood forth ! " For myself, I have no doubt that all 
power is resident in spiritual essences. Matter is inert. 
It is the object, not the subject, of power. It responds 
to action, but does not itself act. Chemical and vital 
action in matter forms no exception to this. In all 
these phenomena, matter only submits to forces which 
come upon it. Action originates in spirit. All Force 
is lodged there. All forces are born of spirit. In the 
Infinite Spirit there is Infinite Power. "None can say 
to Him, what doest thou ? " " He counts the Isles as a 
very little thing." He holds worlds in the hollow of 
His hand. The nations are, with Him, as " the small 
dust of the balances." The nicest poise of the most 
delicate scales of the apothecary is not disturbed by 
a thousand particles of invisible dust that lie upon 
them. The weight of nations is no more to God. He 
is the Almighty. 

Think of the power of Him who swings all the 
worlds about within Himself as lightly as down floats 
in the air ! The moon and the stars were ordained by 
Him and the heavens are the work of His fingers — a 
minute production-^-the work of- His fingers. "Lift up 
your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these 
things, that bringeth out their host by number : He 
calleth them all by names, by the greatness of His 
might, for that He is strong in power: not one faileth." 

5. The Infinite Wisdom is largely affirmed. 

The earlier Scriptures are radiant with this theme. 
Not only do they evince it in history, but set it out in 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 27 

abundant affirmation, and illustrate it with poetic opu- 
lence of imagery. " The Lord is a God of knowledge, 
and by Him actions are weighed." " There is not a 
word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it 
altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and 
laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too won- 
derful for me ; it is high, I can not attain unto it." 
" Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for 
wisdom and might are his : — He giveth wisdom unto 
the wise, and knowledge to them that know under- 
standing : He revealeth the deep and secret things : He 
knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth 
with Him." "He that is perfect in knowledge is with 
thee." "He looketh to the ends of the earth and seeth 
under the whole heaven." "His understanding is infi- 
nite." " There is no searching of His understanding." 
" O Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! in wisdom hast 
Thou made them all." 

The time of a sermon might be filled with quotations 
on this point. He that is wise in counsel is fully hon- 
ored in these revelations. "He doeth all things well." 

6. He is from Everlasting to Everlasting. 

The Old Testament revelations are not equivocal on 
this point. They plainly affirm the Eternity of God. 
They discover Him "in the beginning." Before ever 
the world was, God filled space and eternity. " The 
eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the ever- 
lasting arms." "A thousand years in thy sight are but 
as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the 
night." 

Eternal in His Being, He is of course self-existent. 
He alone has Independent Being. He exists of Him- 



28 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

self. He is liable to no mutations, in as much as He 
is the the sum of all perfection. " I change not." u Thy 
years are throughout all generations. Of old hast Thou 
laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are* 
the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou 
shalt endure : yea, all of them shall wax old like a gar- 
ment ; as a vesture shalt Thou change them and they 
shall be changed : but Thou art the same and Thy years 
shall have no end." What a picture of the Changeless 
amid the changing. Even the heavens and the earth, 
stable as they seem, are yet undergoing their slow mu- 
tations. But they are only the garment of God. When 
they are worn out, He, ever the same, shall " change 
them" — shall we believe, for a new heavens and earth 
— another garment for Himself? Thought stands 
stupid before Him with whom the duration of a world 
is but one swing of the pendulum that marks His mo- 
ments. While the machinery of a universe is wearing 
out, no touch of age comes upon Him. When its foun- 
dations shall go to pieces, He will not feel the shock — 
such is Infinite strength; such is the unchangeable God. 

7. Holiness belongeth unto the Lord. 

Holiness is a word that stands by itself. Its meaning 
is divine. We are indebted to the religion of the Bible 
for any word of such import. It expresses spiritual 
purity and perfection far above any standard of mere 
morality. It may never be predicated of any man 
except to express a spiritual condition wrought in him 
by the Holy Ghost. Nothing save the indwelling 
Spirit of God can introduce holiness into human life. 
The fulness of its meaning is found only in God Him- 






God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 29 

self. In my classification I include in it all His moral 
perfections. It is inclusive of them all. 

On this Attribute the Old Testament is wondrously 
full. " There is none holy as the Lord." ""Who is 
like. Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing 
wonders." "But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabit- 
est the praises of Israel." His "name is holy." " God 
hath spoken in His holiness." " The Lord is righteous 
in all His ways, and holy in all His works." " God 
sitteth upon the throne of His holiness." "Sing unto 
the Lord all ye saints and give thanks at the remem- 
brance of His holiness." " And one cried unto another, 
holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts : the whole earth 
is full of His glory." " Glory ye in His holy name." 
"Let them praise Thy great and terrible name; for it 
is holy." But I must forbear quotation. 

I have said that holiness is inclusive of all moral per- 
fection. The Bible is full of the Justice, Truth, Upright- 
ness, Righteousness, Goodness, Graciousness, Faithful- 
ness, Compa sion, Long-suffering, Mercy, Loving-kind- 
ness of God. They stand in didactic statement, in 
poetic ascription, and in historic illustration. He 
appears in absolute perfection of character. He can not 
lie. He can do no wrong. His Ways are Eight. I can 
not conceive of any character so glorious as that in which 
the Creator appears in His own revealment. He stands 
in the Scriptures ineffably radiant in His own holy 
splendors. The very heavens, glowing with celestial 
light, are impure in His presence. In the light of His 
holiness they are dark. In comparison and contrast 
with Him the angels stand charged with folly, and cover 
their faces. 



30 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

So, in brief and most imperfect outline, God appears 
in the earlier revelations. How clear, how lovely, how 
radiant, how majestic! This is the one only Living and 
True God. 

But the design of the Old Testament Scriptures is 
also, 

II. TO ENTHRONE GOD OVER CONSCIENCE. 

This fact appears in the whole tone and tenor of 
Scripture. The manifest design of revelation is to bring 
man into right relations with the Almighty. It is, as I 
have said, but an utterance of God. Yet the meaning 
of the utterance is for man. It is to take effect in man. 
It is to master him and bring him to his place before 
his Maker. That place is the place of reverent obedi- 
ence and adoring love. God must be enthroned over 
Conscience. To secure this He is revealed, 

1. As Absolute Sovereign, having both right and 
power to control our life and appoint our destiny. As such, 
in a thousand forms, He commands submission and 
denounces disobedience. 

(1.) He publishes a Law. This Law is the expres- 
sion of His own character. It gives essential moral 
truth in its application to human character and rela- 
tions. Eut while it postulates primary moral truth, it 
is also an expression of divine Authority. It comes 
from God. It is proclaimed from the Throne. It 
asserts the sovereign right of the Great King. 

(2.) He enforces the Law by solemn and terrible sanc- 
tions. While the willing and obedient should eat the 
fruit of the land, on the rebellious should come blight 
and mildew, the locust and the canker-worm, pestilence 
and war. Fear should come as desolation, and destruc- 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 31 

tion as a whirlwind. On the wicked he would rain 
snares with fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest. 
"This shall be the portion of their cup." 

(3.) He invites the disobedient to forsake their way, 
and more than intimates a gracious administration, pro- 
claiming forgiveness of iniquity, transgression and sin, 
when they should turn to Him. 

2. He expostulates with men as a Father, wronged and 
dishonored by the disobedience of His children. 

" If I am a Father where is my honor ? " His paternal 
care and claims have been outraged, so that He demands 
the audience of heaven and earth to the dishonor. 
<l Hear O heavens, and give ear O earth, for the Lord 
hath spoken. I have nourished and brought up chil- 
dren, and they have rebelled against me ! " By such 
expostulation and complaint does the Infinite Father 
seek to recall to a filial attitude these wayward sons. 

3. He intimates a coming Redeemer who should " bear 
the sins of many." On him the iniquity of all should be 
laid, and by his stripes they should be healed. By 
V love, so amazing so divine," He would subdue men 
to Himself. Surely when infinite Authority re-enforc s 
itself by dying Love all hearts will bow. 

By these disclosures, in the former dispensations, God 
asserted Himself over the consciences of men. 

What we have found in the Old Testament, then, so 
far, is, that, first, the true idea of God is given to thought; 
and secondly, His just claim asserted over Conscience. 
And this was done in a way, with a variety and charac- 
ter of utterance, to make it most effective. The method 
was historic, giving the advantage of living movement 
and human sympathies as a vehicle of divine truth. The 



32 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

events which are made to body forth this truth are 
grand, imposing, startling; chosen by divine wisdom to 
command attention and open the understanding. Nor 
was the movement hurried. The period was ample in 
duration. The stage was broad. For four thousand 
years, with ever augmenting disclosures, God was de- 
livering Himself upon the thought and heart of man. 

The Manifestation begins with the genesis of things. 
The veil is drawn from over the face ot the past, and 
God is seen at work, making all things. He shapes 
every world, places it, marks out its orbit, and delivers 
upon it the force that hurls it onward upon its path. 
He fills the earth and sea with living things innumer- 
able. He forms man of the dust, breathes into him the 
breath of life, and sets him at the head of terrestrial 
creations. The enigma of the world and of life are 
explained. All things are seen in God. The world is 
neld in His hand. The sun and all the stars were light- 
ed from His fires. Forest and field vegetate from His 
fecundity. Beasts and birds and fishes were made by 
His wisdom, with feet and fins and feathers, each suited 
to its own peculiar habitat. God, the living God, the 
Eternal, the Almighty, the All- wise, the Source of 
being, the Fountain of life, the Father of man, is the 
supreme Fact of Genesis. 

Lovingly he places man in the garden of delights, 
gladdening him with beauty, regaling him with fra- 
grance, feasting him with fruits, and testing his filial 
fidelity by one prohibition. He is shown as Maker, 
Father, Lawgiver. The transgression follows, and God 
immediately appears upon the scene, calling the culprit 
to account, driving him from the garden, and jealously 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 33 

guarding from him the tree of life, by sleepless cheru- 
bim and fiery sword. He degrades him from there- 
creative labor of the garden to the heavy toil and 
painful drudgery of the field. He sends him to a doubt- 
ful battle for bread, with thorns and briars, all his days. 
He remands him to the dust from which he came. Thus 
God appears in a new light — dealing with sin; so that 
this dreadful fact in history is the occasion of' bringing 
upon the foreground another divine attribute — Justice. 
StiL, it is history disclosing God. He is "the Judge of 
all the earth." And now, also, on this occasion, an- 
other Attribute faintly dawns upon our vision. The 
heavens, darkened into midnight over man by his sin, 
are touched upon the eastern edge by the dim radiance 
of Mercy, not yet revealed. " The seed of the woman 
shall bruise the serpent's head." There is a full orbed 
Sun of Mercy, somewhere below the horizon, that has 
sent this refracted ray upon the brow of darkness. It 
is written now, and here, that God is love. The writing 
is a hieroglyph, however, and the character is not yet 
well deciphered. Coming ages will bring the interpre- 
tation. Still the history reveals God. 

He is the Avenger of His people. Abel's blood cries 
to Him from the ground, and the guilty Cain becomes a 
fugitive from the voice of it — a vagabond on the earth* 
first stained with human blood by him. 

The earth has become populous and sin dominant. 
Eighteous Noah alone stands for God. It repents Him 
that He made man on the earth. He breaks the bond 
He had set upon the sea, and calls the forces of nature 
to heave all its waves upon the land. Fountains from 
below and rains from above whelm cities, plains and 



34 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

hills and mountains in their deluge, and wash the earth 
from man's impurity. Yet, with a careful hand, the one 
righteous family is shut up and .sheltered in the ark. 
History reveals God again — the God of Providence, 
cleaning the earth and disinfecting the atmosphere of a 
moral malaria in which all virtue perished. Babel soon 
adds its testimony. All this is God in history — the Holy 
One, 

Then Abraham appears, the Friend of God. Led out 
into a strange land to a place provided, God constitutes 
him the representative of mankind, and binds Himself 
to Him by the awful formula of an oath, in a solemn 
covenant of redeeming mercies for the world. The Sun 
of Mercy sweeps upward toward the horizon, the light 
increases. "In thy Seed shall all nations be blessed/ 7 
God's hand is with this wonderful man. He prospers 
in peace and conquers in war, but ever by the power 
of the Most High God, to whose Priest he gives the 
" tenth of all/' Isaac and Jacob succeed to his estates 
and his covenant. How Isaac blessed Jacob in the name 
of God, and how Jacob became Israel — a Prince of God 
— through night-long wrestling and pain, I need not say. 
Nor how God, through man's wickedness, led Joseph 
into Egypt to save the chosen family from death by 
famine; ever charging Himself with their preservation 
and the fulfilment of his covenant. You know of the 
strange mercies that raised up Moses, and how God 
appeared to him in the bush that burned and was not 
consumed ; how He sent him to Pharoah, and gave 
signs and wonders in the land of Ham; how with a 
High Hand He led His people out; how He symbolized 
His Presence by a cloud-column that became fire at 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 35 

night, and moved before them, pausing where the\ 
should camp; and how, when they were pursued by the 
Egyptian army, the Presence came behind them, stand- 
ing between them and their enemies, giving light 
from the side toward them and darkness from the other. 
God clave a path through the waters for them, and 
brought the sea back on their pursuers. He fed them 
in the wilderness, and clave the flinty rock to make a 
river for their thirst. This was the Covenant keeping 
God fulfilling His oath to Abraham and His word to Isaac. 

Subdued, awed, chastened, strengthened, by this his- 
tory, already smitten with Godhead, they came to Sinai 
in the desert. The scenery, too, impressed them. They 
had never seen mountains until of late. These mural 
iSublimities awe them. Moses forewarns them of an 
impending interview "with God. They must wash their 
clothes. They must not tolerate the slightest impurity 
upon their persons nor in their tents, for God was about 
to speak to them. The day approaches. They are re- 
moved from the base of the mountain, which is to be 
the theatre of the Presence. iSTo man nor beast shall 
touch it on pain of death. Expectation is breathless. 
The hour is at hand. The coming of God is imminent. 
The hush is perfect through all the camp. The silence 
is awful. All things are waiting for God. 

There is a sound. It is the sound of a trumpet. It 
is the trumpet of God. How deep ! how solemn ! and 
the great waves of it sweep far over the desert and re- 
verberate among distant mountains. It is prolonged. 
It waxes louder, and louder, and louder. Still it is pro- 
longed, still waxes louder and louder, until it shakes 
the mountains, and there is an earthquake. All at once 



36 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

the cloud, the black smoke, rolling in masses, the thick 
darkness, broken at intervals by a leap of chain light- 
ning, or an outburst of devouring flame, envelope the 
summit. God has come. He is on the mountain hiding 
His Presence in the black canopy. And now thunders 
of sevenfold power and loudness crown the terrors of 
the day. 

This is no mere display. It is the symbol of Power 
and Majesty and Justice, and is the background on which 
the Law is portrayed. All its voices are but the em- 
phasis of Law. All its lightnings are ministers 
of God to avenge the violation of His Law. Its fire- 
jets are outbursts of the wrath that guards the Law. 
The Law itself is the expression of God's Holiness. 
Sinai, then, is an overwhelming utterance of God, in His 
Sovereignty, His Holiness, His Justice. This history still 
shows the grandness, and through it the trumpet still 
waxes loud till hearts quake, and the concussion of the 
thunder jars men's souls to-day. God and His Law take 
a meaning, to us, from this History that they could not 
otherwise have. 

But time fails me. The journey through the wilder- 
ness, enemies put to flight, the sun held still, the myste- 
rious burial of Moses, the leadership of Joshua, the set- 
tlement of the land in the face of enemies, the eventful 
era of the Judges, the King demanded and granted, 
with the wonderful ritual, its priests without blemish, 
and lambs without spot, is a history all full of God. The 
reign of David, the grandeur of Solomon, the wondrous 
temple, its dedication and appointments, still renew and 
augment the volume of the voice that announces God. Then 
comes the downward course of backsMdings in Israel, 



God in the Old Testament Scriptures, 37 

with partial repentance and still deeper backsliding to 
the time of the captivity; God forgotten and asserting 
Himself in dreadful woes, forgotten again and ever- 
more renewing the assertion, in famine and blood and 
fire and smoke and the confused noise of battle. All 
the later history of the Jews was a repetition of divine 
utterances, prolonged, intensified, concentrated, until at 
last the meaning of His name was understood. He laid 
siege to the citadel of depraved thought and idolatrous 
feeling, and never raised it until he made the conquest, 
and established a pure Theism among men. 
# Then there are the Psalms making heavenly music of 
the Name of God. From first to last the Lord, His 
Power and Majesty and Holiness and Mercy and Truth 
— all the glories of His Name — His faithfulness, His 
care of His people, His mighty acts, His wonderful 
ways, are the theme of inxpassioned Poetry. The whole 
book of Job culminates in the voice of God at last. 
The Prophets are God's messengers, giving God's will 
and warning to men. Their sentences pulsate with His 
presence. I did intend to be more minute — to show 
how God appears in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, and all 
the rest. But I can not. The time fails me. I must 
come to the end. 

The Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, the History, from a 
thousand sources and by ten thousand voices, gather up 

THE MEANINGS OF THE NAME OF GOD AND DELIVER THEM 
TO MAN. 

About the time the Name became supreme with the 
chosen people they became scattered, from one cause 
and another, over the whole civilized world. In our 
Saviour's day they were in considerable numbers in all 
the cities of Asia Minor and Europe, and had syna- 



38 God in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

gogues every where. The Bible history was in them, 
and with it the Name it uttered. The Name, and its 
import, they had spread over the entire world. 

This prolonged utterance through all the triumphs 
and woes of peace and war, the varied forms of mir- 
acle and metaphor, coming through Eden, Egypt, Sinai 
and Babylon, had cleared a place for God in thought, and 
established for Him a power over conscience that, in view 
of the depravity of man, we must consider wonderful 
indeed. And this was an effect absolutely demanded as 
pre-requisite to the coming of Christ. God, in His 
character of Holiness, and in His relation as Sovereign^ 
must become indubitable in thought, and in the moral sense, 
before the world could understand the mission of the 
Son of God. 

Meanwhile the dawn was brightening. In the era of 
prophesy the Sun of Mercy neared the horizon. Isaiah 
saw His glory and spoke of Him. TJie Law, the school- 
master, was doing his work in man, to prepare him for 
Christ. Type and prophesy were doing their work, 
preparing His credentials. 

III. Thus the world was prepared for the coming 
of Christ, who -is Himself the final and highest 
utterance of the godhead. 

All these announcements of Himself had only quick- 
ened the ear of man for a fuller utterance. These reve- 
lations, grand and glorious as they were, were only 
preparing man for richer disclosures. They were only 
accustoming the eye to light, so that the risen Sun 
might not blind it. They prepared the world for 
Christ, who Himself would be, in the fulness of it, the 
Word of God — another, and the final disclosure of the 
Infinite to man. 

But this theme must occupy another hour. 



EDWARD A. FILLEY, 

Direct Importer and Jobber in 



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V 



D. A. JANUARY, 
CHAS. H. PECK, - 
Wl. T. SELBY, 
J. S. MILLER, 
WM. N. BENTON, 
WM. E. HARVEY, 



OFFICERS 



President. 
Vice-President. 
Secretary. 
Assistant Secretary. 
General Agent. 
Actuary. 



5>5»ECTO»S 



OLIVER GARRISON, 
SAMUEL WILLI, 
THEO. LAVIELLE, 
CHAS. H. PECK, 
Gen. THOS. L. PRICE, 
JULES VALLE, 
GEO. B. ROBINSON, 
ROBERT E. CARR, 
JQHNF. THORNTON, 
I3AV1D K. EERGUSO" 



FERGUSON, 



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WILLIAN 

WM. C. c 

R. P. HA 

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JAS. O. CARSON, 

JACOBJTAMM, 



Hon. JOHN HOGAN. 



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